Summary
Elysium’s employee self-service experience needed to do more than accept requests. Employees needed to understand requirements and progress; managers needed context for decisions; HR needed to accommodate different company policies without custom development.
As sole designer, I worked with the company owner and two developers on a broader ESS experience. This case study focuses on two initiatives: vacation groups and capacity limits, developed over two months, and conditional document attachments, developed over six weeks. Mobile navigation provides a supporting example of adapting the experience across devices.
In the conditional-attachment evaluation, unaided success increased from 10/22 to 20/22 task attempts across employee, admin, and approver tasks. All four task-completion targets were met, while deadline comprehension remained an area for refinement.
My Role and Team
I led research, information architecture, interaction and visual design, prototyping, and usability testing as the sole designer. I collaborated with the company owner on requirements and product direction and with two developers on feasibility and implementation.
These durations describe the two initiatives, not the entire ESS program. My wider responsibilities included annotated handoff, implementation reviews, QA, training, and migration support across Elysium.
Problem, Context & Constraints
A request could be submitted without its next steps being understood
Employees could not attach supporting documents to requests, and request status did not clearly communicate pending approval stages or decision ownership. Supervisors reviewed requests manually and lacked a clear view of overlapping absences. HR needed configurable policies rather than a single workflow imposed on every client.
The design also had to distinguish planned vacation from unplanned sickness. Staffing capacity matters for both, but an employee cannot choose not to be ill simply because a group’s vacation allowance is full.
The work sat within an enterprise platform with established client configurations, legacy dependencies, and Kendo UI constraints. It needed to connect HR setup, employee actions, and approver decisions across web and mobile.
Goals & Success Criteria
Make rules predictable and next actions explicit
The goals were to help HR configure policies, let employees understand requirements before and after submission, and give approvers enough context to make decisions.
For capacity rules, the intent was to support staffing coverage while allowing client-specific enforcement and exceptions. For attachments, users needed to understand the trigger, day-counting policy, upload options, and approval status.
The conditional-attachment evaluation defined success as unaided task completion by at least 5 of 6 employees for each employee task and 4 of 5 participants for each admin/approver task. Employee comprehension measures also targeted 5 of 6. Supporting measures included task time, assistance, ease, and confidence.
Understanding the users
Three perspectives on one workflow
I drew on client complaints, interviews, surveys, and support-ticket analysis. The research guide separated employee, manager/approver, and admin tasks rather than asking everyone to perform every configuration activity.
The documented attachment evaluation included six participants for each employee task and five for each admin/approver task per round. Those are task-level denominators, not a count of unique participants across the whole ESS program.
Personas
ADMINISTRATOR
Nadia Brooks
HR / Authorized Administrator
Configures employee groups, documentation policies, and enforcement rules so time-off workflows reflect company requirements.
GOALS
Apply the right requirements to each group, make policy exceptions explicit, and keep configuration consistent.
FRUSTRATIONS
Unclear rule dependencies and inconsistent enforcement lead to missing documents and repeated follow-up.
BEHAVIORS
Checks group membership, reviews documentation requirements, and validates representative requests before updating policies.
TECH COMFORT
Web tools
Self-service
Configuration
“The right policy should apply automatically, and everyone should know what is required.”
EMPLOYEE
Alex Morgan
Employee / Time-Off Requester
Requests time off, provides required information, and needs to understand which steps or documents remain outstanding.
GOALS
Submit a complete request, provide documentation securely, and track progress without contacting HR.
FRUSTRATIONS
Requirements revealed after submission and vague status messages create uncertainty and avoidable rework.
BEHAVIORS
Checks requirements before submitting, adds requested information, and returns to confirm whether anything is still needed.
TECH COMFORT
Web tools
Self-service
Configuration
“Tell me what I need to provide and what is still outstanding.”
APPROVER
Jordan Lee
Manager / Designated Approver
Assesses time-off requests, supporting documentation, and staffing implications before making a decision.
GOALS
Make timely, informed decisions with a clear view of request details, documentation, and team coverage.
FRUSTRATIONS
Missing context and scattered documentation require follow-up before a confident decision is possible.
BEHAVIORS
Reviews pending requests, checks documentation completeness and staffing impact, then records a decision or asks for clarification.
TECH COMFORT
Web tools
Self-service
Configuration
“Give me the request, the supporting information, and the team impact in one place.”
Research Insights
Configurable rules needed understandable explanations
The employee evaluation revealed four points of confusion:
The underlying issue was not simply missing labels. Employees needed a visible connection between the policy, the current request, and the next action.
Prioritization and Scope
Two complementary initiatives, one coherent request experience
This case study gives those workflows the main narrative. Other ESS capabilities remain background context, while mobile navigation supports the cross-device story. The two initiatives are related, but their timelines and evaluation evidence remain separate.
Impact vs effort matrix
A qualitative view of likely user value and implementation effort, based on this case study. These are suggested priorities, not measured scores or a record of the original release order.
Lower effort | Higher effort | |
|---|---|---|
Higher impact | Quick wins Move deadlines beside upload actions; clarify requirements and waiting status. | Major investments Build configurable capacity groups, document conditions, and approval routing. |
Lower impact | Nice to have Add extra visual emphasis to the day counter outside date editing. | Deprioritize Build custom workflows for each client instead of reusable policy configuration. |
Information Architecture and Key Flows
Connect setup, submission, and review
These flows show how HR configuration shapes the employee request experience and the approver’s review. The capacity flow connects group rules and limits to warning, blocking, or review behavior, while the attachment flow makes document requirements, upload options, and request status clear at each step.
Conditional fields appeared when relevant. Request status distinguished submission, outstanding documentation, review, and decision rather than treating every submitted request as complete.
Exploration and Design Decisions
1. Represent coverage through flexible groups
HR could define vacation groups using employee conditions such as department, position, or location. Membership updated as records changed. Color coding helped distinguish groups, while the time-off dashboard showed who was absent and for how long.
Group limits controlled simultaneous absences. Enforcement reflected configuration rather than one universal rejection rule. Sick leave could proceed to review instead of being prevented by a vacation-capacity restriction. Approval routing could include a designated person or HR reviewer rather than only the direct supervisor. Conditional auto-approval supported eligible requests without manual review of every case.
2. Explain requirements when they become relevant
The sick-leave form introduced the documentation rule upfront. When dates reached the configured threshold, the upload requirement appeared with its reason. Extensions showed the updated consecutive-day count. If a requirement arose after submission, a notification linked directly to upload.
3. Make policy calculations visible
A live counter and calendar markings showed which days counted. The hint reflected the company’s policy, including how non-working days were treated. Employee, approver, and notification language stayed aligned.
4. Separate submission from completion
Employees could upload immediately or use the available submit-now/upload-later path. A dated deadline and “Submitted, waiting for document” status clarified what remained outstanding. Reminders explained the consequence of missing the deadline.
5. Distinguish standard review from an error
Sick-request confirmation explained that review was normal. Employee-facing capacity warnings were removed from sick requests, while approvers retained staffing-impact information. A status timeline made progress and response expectations visible. For over-capacity vacation requests, the revised flow identified affected days and allowed cancellation or submission for review.
Testing and Iteration
Trace each finding to a change
Finding | Design response |
|---|---|
Document requirement noticed too late | Upfront policy notice and threshold-triggered explanation |
Consecutive-day rules unclear | Live counter, counted calendar days, company-specific wording |
Upload timing unclear | Explicit upload choices, dated deadline, waiting status, reminders |
Review mistaken for a problem | Standard-review explanation and visible status timeline |
The team made the changes and tested again. The next round of testing showed clear improvement, but some employees still missed the upload deadline because they had to scroll down to see it on mobile. Others found the day counter distracting, and one person did not notice the “Waiting for document” status.
The team then moved the deadline next to the upload buttons, made the counter less noticeable and showed it only while editing dates, and made the waiting status clearer with text, an icon, and color. The results below were recorded before these final changes.
Final Experience
Shared capability, appropriate presentation
The web experience connected configurable HR rules with employee requests, supporting documents, absence visibility, approval routing, and status tracking.
I also designed a separate ESS mobile app using mobile components while preserving employee-facing web functionality. Home and More anchored bottom navigation, with role-relevant destinations in between. People with multiple responsibilities used combined permission-filtered navigation, consistent with web, rather than switching roles.
The initial mobile design included both bottom navigation and a hamburger menu. Testing showed confusion between the two. I removed the hamburger and consolidated secondary destinations under More. Badges surfaced pending actions without changing the navigation structure.
Implementation & Delivery
Carry policy intent into the interface
I worked with the owner and two developers on requirements, feasibility, design, and implementation review. My usual progression was sketches, wireframes reviewed with the owner, team feasibility review, then detailed designs and prototypes.
Annotations communicated conditional behavior, validation, status, and edge cases. Implementation reviews and release QA checked behavior against the intended experience. I owned the decision about which identified design-QA issues blocked release.
Vacation groups and conditional attachments were later Elysium enhancements, not part of the initial feature-parity release. The two-month and six-week timelines describe their respective initiatives rather than the full web/mobile ESS delivery.
Impact & Evidence
Higher task success across the connected attachment workflow
Task | Original design | Revised design | Target |
Admin defines sick-leave and jury-duty document rules | 3/5 | 5/5 | At least 4/5 |
Employee requests sick leave Monday–Wednesday | 3/6 | 6/6 | At least 5/6 |
Approver reviews a request without a document | 2/5 | 4/5 | At least 4/5 |
Employee extends sick leave to day three | 2/6 | 5/6 | At least 5/6 |
Across the four tasks, unaided success increased from 10/22 to 20/22 attempts. Every task met its completion target.
Supporting measure | Round 1 | Round 2 |
Median extension-task time | 2 min 40 sec | 1 min 55 sec |
Total assists across tasks | 5 | 1 |
Average ease, 1–7 | 4.2 | 6.0 |
Average confidence request is complete, 1–7 | 3.8 | 5.8 |
Three of four employee-comprehension targets were met. Recognizing the document requirement improved from 2/6 to 6/6; counting-policy understanding from 2/6 to 5/6; recognizing standard review from 3/6 to 6/6. Understanding upload options and deadlines improved from 1/6 to 4/6, below the 5/6 target.
These small-study results apply to the conditional-attachment tasks, not vacation groups or ESS as a whole. Completion measures task attempts, not unique users. The faster observed time does not isolate the effect of any single change.
Lower Number of Customer Support Tickets
Customer support also reported lower ESS ticket volume after adoption. That is broader qualitative evidence, separate from the task-level measures and without a confirmed reduction percentage here.
Reflection & Next Steps
Configuration is only useful when its consequences are clear
The design had to balance organizational policy with employees’ ability to understand and complete a request. HR flexibility alone was not enough: the employee needed to see when a rule applied, what remained pending, and why review was happening.
The remaining deadline issue showed that including information was different from making it noticeable at the point of decision. It also illustrated why successful submission and accurate understanding should be measured separately.
The next validation priority would be to evaluate the implemented deadline/status refinements and check exceptions such as extending leave, missing documents, and changes in approver availability. Longer-term monitoring could connect task success with support-question patterns and repeated use across different client policies.
Part of Elysium at Intechsol. This focused case study covers selected ESS initiatives within a broader self-service program.
